


I wish we never met

by ziim



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, and how it went so terribly wrong, but right at the same time, their life thorughout the years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:16:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29545716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziim/pseuds/ziim
Summary: Calling out all my emotionally masochist people, this is gonna be *sad*.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	I wish we never met

~ ~ ~ ~

7

~ ~ ~ ~

The first time she heard it, little Adora had been only seven. She couldn’t even comprehend it then, much less how and from where exactly the sound was coming from. She could only watch it in awe, as another girl- probably the same age as her- quietly played her instrument in the corner of the musical room.

Adora had slipped away from her tutoring, completely out of character and with a rush of adrenaline she wanted to get a hold of. The not so perfectly tunned sound of violin made her stop though, surprising her to actually be interested in classical music. Yet, the instrument had been played concerningly small to its actual magnificence; almost… scared. _Why_ _?_

The girl playing it then, with her mane of dark hair nearly tangling on her bow in-between each long trusts. She kind of shone to Adora’s eyes, like there had been a whole orchestra playing on the background, except they were alone.

“Get out!” The stranger had ended up glaring at her, when she realized the audience.

Blondie had flinched and considered walking away, but something made her stay. A push by the Stars maybe. “I’m Adora! What’s your name?” She slowly approached instead.

The brunette didn’t answer, only setting her violin down very carefully in its box. _She_ decided to leave then, but a little hand caught hers on the way out- to which she shrugged off abruptly. “I don’t have one.”

Over a desert room with forgotten instruments molding the scenario, Adora truly thought about it. But maybe not so hard, or enough. “Hm… What about ‘Catra’?” _She is like those cute cats, sneaking around and hissing._ “Do you want to be my friend?”

“No.”

~ ~ ~ ~

13

~ ~ ~ ~

Six years later and they were already inseparable. Knowing each other’s everything and what even themselves didn’t realize about their own lives. Adora obviously knew how the violin meant more than a hobby to Catra, and so, how she wasn’t allowed to play at her foster home, because they annoyed of the sound.

On the other end, Catra knew how _Adora_ was pushed around in her family. Having lost her parents long before she could speak words, the First One’s kept passing her like a hot potato game- silently waiting for her to turn eighteen already and claim her heritage, so they could pledge for her to return the favor of ‘taking care of her’.

Thus, at one fateful night, the brunette called her friend to go with her to the Whispering Woods. The forest had only a few days prior been deemed dangerous, because of wild animals and such. But Catra knew better. She knew it was actually because of ‘strange activity’ going around. And she needed to show Adora, who debated weakly first, but ended up just going along with it.

They walked hand-in-hand to the deepest parts of the woods; Catra clutching her violin with her free hand. Finally stopping at a bigger clearing to make use of the moonlight. “Okay, here should be fine.”

“What should?”

“You’ll see…”, the brunette said with that developing sultriness in her voice. “Sit down.”

Adora promptly did, watching the other girl tune her violin, before positioning it over her left shoulder. It started as a low melody, as it slowly picked up the pace. She realized soon enough, that it was one of Catra’s original compositions, since it held her signature forceful tone in the end of every trust. Yet, something was different.

The woods… Sparkles of light had been dragged by the musicality, and it weren’t fireflies. They shone brighter and brighter, closer and closer to the musician, effectively surrounding her. Even the moonlight seemed to close in the clearing.

Catra slowed down accordingly, as whispers of wind passed by the trees protecting them. She made a long last vibrato… “What do you think?”

Adora had never been able to stare away from the other girl playing the violin before, that went without saying. But seeing said girl carefully extending her hand for a cake of light to fly above it, by the end of the performance? It shone of various colors: purple, yellow, black, green, pink, blue… “It’s beautiful…”

“It could be our secret spot.”

“Another one?” Blondie giggled softly, as she got up to dance along the magic.

Catra laughed at her too. “You’re a dork.”

 _Your dork, but I wouldn’t deserve_ you _._ “Well, yeah! This is… I don’t know! But it’s amazing!”

It didn’t take long from then, for the rest of humanity, for the rest of the _world_ to realize a different kind of energy quietly crippling on them. It changed everything, but not really. Their society continued the same mostly false meritocratic based- what did adapt were only the quantity of professions and types of propaganda, which wasn’t really news to anyone.

~ ~ ~ ~

22

~ ~ ~ ~

Adora woke up with a startle, breath ragged and clutching her chest for her dear memory not fade away. She felt dried tears painting her cheeks, but didn’t bother with them to get up already. Her robotic routine would had taken place, should it not be for the Stars pushing her to look back at her nightstand, to at least steal a quick glance at the framed photo there.

It didn’t go by quick, and she found herself lost at those heterochromatic eyes she would never really see again. Would never get charmed by again.

The now twenty-two-year-old grabbed the wooden frame and tossed it across the room, not caring in the slightest, how the glass shattered everywhere. But she did crunch down a second later, rather to check if the photo within it was okay.

Heavy footsteps resonated by the whole apartment, before someone softly knocked on her bedroom’s door. “Everything okay in there?” But no one answered them. “Adora, please, not again…”

“ _Glimmer, please_ ”, she mocked back instead. “Go away.”

“You know I won’t do that.”

Adora sighed the prior year out of her, the last year she’d had with _her_. “It’s fine. _I’m_ fine.”

“(…) Okay.”

~ ~ ~ ~

21

~ ~ ~ ~

Their ‘perfect plan’ was being ripped out right in front of them. Adora couldn’t move; she was stuck in her knees by the man’s energy force in front of them, but also by her own fear. She didn’t know where to go from there- not even one of her backup plans applied in this scenario.

“Adora!”, someone kept calling for her. _Yelling at the top of their lungs._ “ADORA!”

She didn’t budge, _couldn’t_ really. His command over her nature was too strong.

Yet, her fear wasn’t over herself. It was over the woman who punched her mind captor right in the face. The woman who clearly knew how to take care of herself, and even Adora now.

“You need to get out of here, dummy.”

Something was wrong- something was _very_ wrong. Catra couldn’t had just punched the guy away like that. Not the one and only mob leader of the underground fights. He wasn’t just a face and mouth to show, if that’s what you are wondering. He had the power for it, and Adora had experienced enough of him alright.

“Catra- what, how?!”

The brunette just smiled at her, scratching the back of her short hair the way Adora knew she was hiding something. “I told you it wouldn’t work…”

Loud grunts were heard by her voice getting smaller and smaller, from Hordak getting up again. “Ha! That’s how you’ll do it? You think I care for my life, you little rascal?! Come and get it!”

Catra sure faced him. A golden glow enveloped her usually fit figure, but now scrawny- a sign of her energy taking up her life essence. Adora tried following their moves, even if they were already long into the magic and she couldn’t really read anything. She did catch, though, how Hordak was sent flying across the stadium. It was her chance to get a hold of her… friend? Best-friend, first crush, the love of her life. Her friend’s hand.

“Stop! I know what you are doing!”

“Do you, princess?” Catra looked up at her with tired eyes. Much too tired, and not just emotionally.

Adora clenched her teeth, seeing Hordak rapidly pulling himself out of his debris cage. _Always with the nicknames…_

“Don’t play it, I’m begging you. Catra, don’t play it.” Never would she had thought, all those years ago in that abandoned musical room, that she would plead not to hear the brunette’s musicality.

“I have to finish this-”

“ _We_ have to! This isn’t just your fight, asshole!”

Pass all the enraging feeling, Catra could also see the pure desperation in Adora’s eyes. She could see how they kept trying to sparkle a brighter blue back to life, but the girl was spent already. And she would not let Adora get to her state too.

“You think I care?” _I care, so much._

~ ~ ~ ~

19

~ ~ ~ ~

“It’s easy cash, Adora!”

“It’s _illegal_!”

Catra grunted, completed turned down by her oldest friend, to partake on some underground fights. Well, not so underground, since it was the main income for a lot of small countries those days. Off the record, obviously. But which reminded her… “They literally do it on the streets in Uruguay!”

“You don’t speak Spanish!”

“Ugh, you’re impossible.”

They still did go to the third district though, with all the reluctance from the blonde girl. “We’ll just go get a grip of things today then”, Catra had convinced her. Adora was really only going, because she knew for a fact the brunette would go without her, if she had refused.

Except, what they found around the area wasn’t at all what they expected. That being tough cocky dudes walking around, booze and trash everywhere, bets being placed aloud, chanting for a street fight somewhere. They only got the ‘booze’ part right, as the third district ended up just being a normal club neighborhood. Mostly teenagers walked around, actually respecting everyone’s boundaries and picking up their own trash.

Catra studied it some more, trying to understand how she didn’t know of the place before. It clicked soon after, how the ‘teenagers’ weren’t actually teenagers, but a bunch of high and probably old mages walking around in appearance spells. She looked at Adora, and the girl sure matched her calculative stance.

“Let’s check that out first.”

They wound up at a not completely packed rave, yet still having to do with the little space within the stoned crowd. Adora actually convinced her grumpy and socially-awkward best friend to stick around, mostly to keep her from checking the other places and finally finding the lower grounds she so wanted to get herself tangled with. What came next was just a bonus, she told herself. _Not planned at all._

At nineteen, even with you are scared of the feeling not being mutual, add a little alcohol to that and you are good to go give it a try.

Adora pulled the brunette to a nearby pole, trapping her there and figuratively shielding them from the world. “You know… I think that water they gave me wasn’t water”, she giggled with herself, whispering by Catra’s ear since the music was way too ear-shattering to talk normally.

The brunette felt more like her world closed in, like it always did when her friend got too close. “You _think_? That clearly was pure vodka and you knew it.”

“Yeah, I did.” Adora grinned some more, slowly turning it into a smirk when she pressed more on the girl. “Can I try something?”

Catra didn’t wait for her to lean in, rather pulling her neck down already and kissing the hell out of her crush. She didn’t tell her she also took one or two sips from a stranger’s cup.

The blasting music was still there, the sense of presences grinding against each other around them too. Which made it all the more entrancing, when neither of them could focus on anything else. Only on how Catra bit her lower lip not so gently, what followed Adora sneaking her hands behind the brunette’s tights and lifting her up. It worked for them to press more, more, more, more. No number of strong drinks could really do that to them, it was actual pent-up willingness to do that over the years.

“I want more”, blondie admitted by Catra’s ear, who whimpered when she wouldn’t stop leaving hard hickeys all over her tan skin. But there was also a silent question in Adora’s behavior.

“Me too…”

~ ~ ~ ~

22

~ ~ ~ ~

She walked desolate through the empty streets of her childhood city. It was destroyed all around, from years of corruption and brute-power battles. It was the city that had held one of the magic catalysts, after all. Although it was completely extinguished now, leaving the apocalyptic scenario to homeless people to do as they pleased. 

The retired Light Force commander found herself stocked in place by her old school. Half of the building had crumbled down, but it could still be passed in. In the long corridor, by one, two, three, six classrooms- you turn right and go all the way to the last door. She remembered it had musical notes on it before, now the door wasn’t even there. The little girl with a mane of dark hair hiding her instrument wasn’t there either.

_“Get out!”_

_“I’m Adora! What’s your name?”_

So how come she could hear them again… Only in whispers, when it had been not quiet at all.

The corner of the room, where she had first heard it too, had its wall completely gone for some reason. She staggered over, trying to reach those whispers. _Trying to live it again._

_“I don’t have one.”_

_“Hm… What about-”_

Or not. No.

“Why… Why did we have to meet here? I hated you then, did you know that? God, I still hate you so much.”

Adora conveniently swiped her eyes to a broken violin on the ground- the universe just had to be mocking her. She rather picked it up, then tossed with all her force against the opposite wall.

“FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

It cracked in more pieces, as if time slowed down to it falling on the debris again. As if she could hear her playing it again for half a second. A single acute note. Except there was no one else there.

The door wasn’t there.

The wall wasn’t there.

_She wasn’t there._

~ ~ ~ ~

11

~ ~ ~ ~

“What about this one?”

“That’s an electronic violin, dummy. I want the normal ones.” Catra scrolled down her search page.

“It looked badass…” Adora pouted beside her. They were the only students in the music room that cold afternoon, since the other kids played in the snow outside. It looked more beautiful looking from inside, obviously with a certain someone and in their little bubble. She wasn’t even looking at the snow, actually.

“I know, but I can’t afford them.” Big, big words for an eleven-year-old. Catra had always been like that, the mature one. Although she was reckless in her own way too.

“Once I turn eighteen and get my parents’ money, I’ll buy you all the violins in the world!”

She giggled to her friend’s silliness. “That’s stupid. What would I do with so many?”

“That’s for you to deal with.” Adora smirked in her convinced self, no one could change her mind like that.

~ ~ ~ ~

18

~ ~ ~ ~

Blondie did change her mind in the course of another year, even if she would do it if Catra asked herself. It would just be inconvenient to do without the girl’s consent. She still bought her best-friend something though, the moment that lawyer helped her get access to her heritage.

She practically dragged the brunette to one of their secret spots then- this little grass hill by the end of their city. It sure had a nice view of above the Whispering Woods, since the beacon of light coming from the middle of the forest and all that. From that clearing they had the chance to have only for themselves once. Now the area was off limits.

“Adora, my birthday is months away-”

“Just open it!”

Catra first awed at the black instrument in her lap, gawking at how pretty and _badass_ it was, then realized… “It’s electronic?”

“Yeah!”

“I can’t believe you”, she whispered with tears in her eyes. “I’ve never even played with one before.”

“That’s for you to deal with.” Adora made sure to giggle herself this time. It wasn’t snowing, but they had a different magical view too. She still wasn’t looking at the scenario.

~ ~ ~ ~

22

~ ~ ~ ~

Her knees hit concrete before she could feel them falter.

Curiously, Adora never thought of learning to play an instrument herself, even if she loved to hear it. That girl said she had a cute voice, though, and it was all it took for her to take lessons once upon a time.

It didn’t come in hand at all now. Now that she could only scream at the top of her lungs and neither care for her throat screeching.

_“Do you want to be my friend?”_

**“STOP!”** Her voice got hoarser, demanding something she couldn’t even pin-point where it was coming from. “Don’t-”, but it finally caught up. “Don’t ask her that. Please, please don’t. I’m begging you…” And her quiet- much too quiet, that it seemed almost scared sniffles took the musicality away. _Why?_

She knew why that girl had played with an edge sense now; she didn’t want to be heard. And for the life of Adora then, she was _terrified._

Except the silence only reverberated for a minute or so, until laughter filled the place. High-pitched, sarcastic laughter that could only belong to one person in her life.

Blondie got up with some reluctance, choosing to hold her head high instead. Those steel-cutting giggles guided her out of the school and to the forest that surrounded it. Whether it was from whom she was looking for or not, it didn’t matter. Not when it pierced and gutted her heart out, while it was also all she ever knew- cared about, hoped for.

She made to sprint at some point, which neither she realized when it happened. The high trees passed fast before her, with some stray branches cutting her physically here and there. First it gashed deep on her cheek, then one at her arm and slashing her shirt too. By the time she reached the edge of the city, she had at least ten cuts about her body.

Looking down now, the beacon of light wasn’t there anymore. Their once secret clearing was much bigger, but the magic had long run away.

_“I want more…”_

_“Me too.”_

A different kind of pang cursed through her veins at those words. The kind of poisonous nostalgia and first times. First everything.

She let gravity do its job, as she fell from the cliff. The pressure of the air against her body calmed her stress briefly, so she closed her empty yet still beautiful blue eyes. When the ground made contact, her own type of magic crashed a hole before she stood there normally.

If only she had been that strong a year ago. If only magic didn’t work with dead emotions, and instead with the goody-goody kind that fairy-tales used to profit from. If only she had hated her, not…

~ ~ ~ ~

21

~ ~ ~ ~

“It’s tomorrow…” Catra caressed her pale cheek across the bed.

“Yeah.” Adora sighed and made to lay closer of her- “I love you.” Of her lover.

“I love you too.”

_If only she had not loved her._

A dark shadow watched them from the corner of the room. It gritted its teeth, while the scene unfolded itself to whispers and general pillow talk. **“I HATED YOU!”** It shouted with all its might, but nobody heard. Nobody cared- they never did. They would always have each other anyway, right? Even if that meant not really thinking about _themselves_ , and later risking their life for the other. It was meant to never work.

~ ~ ~ ~

22

~ ~ ~ ~

“No, I hated you…” Adora found that special clearing again, leaning against a nearby tree. “You never listened to me, you never paid for your drinks.” She took a step inside, then another. “You never let me study alone, you never asked before showing up at my house.” Twenty more and she got to the center, where that girl had once played a random piece of her own.

She crunched down, tracing the burned grass there. “You made me go to that singing class, even though I was definitely… Ha, I was definitely behind all the other kids.

“You made me go with you to those street fights and…” Adora’s tears fell before she could acknowledge them, painting the mud to a darker brown. She gulped down her cry, though, and let a certain violin make the sound around.

When she finally looked up- _there she was_. Wherever that astral projection came from, but Catra was the one playing there now. Playing that lacking composition from all those years ago.

The brunette never danced around like some performances; she stood at one place with her mismatched eyes closed. A slight frown between her eyebrows, even with the trusts of her bow making such gentle sounds. That until it picked up to a forceful rhythm, as she opened those beautiful yellow and blue orbs with a characteristic smirk to her lips.

“God, I hate you so much, Catra… You made me love you, dumbass.” Adora giggled up, still kneeling in front of her lover. Still watching the stranger from afar. Still ignoring the rest of the world, as the snow painted a rather pretty painting around them.

“And you never…” She gave a toothless smile to the ever-mocking universe. “You don’t even let me hate you.”

**_“Get out!”_ **

_“I’m Adora! What’s your name?”_

**_“What do you think?”_ **

_“It’s beautiful…”_

_"I want more."_

**_"Me too..."_ **

**_“I love you.”_ **

_“I love you too.”_

**_“Do you, princess?”_ **

_“Don’t play it, I’m begging you. Catra, don’t play it.”_

_…_

**_“You think I care?”_ ** _She cared, so much._

The violin finally stopped.

Adora skipped happily along the corridor, humming to a song in her mind she didn’t put much thought on. Eventually, she came face to face with that decorated door- the one with the musical notes. She pushed gently on it, not to startle the girl who must be waiting for her inside. Surely the brunette was there, always by the corner of the room and carefully cleaning her instrument. “Hey, Catra!”

**Author's Note:**

> did it work?


End file.
